With its top-notch search functionality and other business-centric features, SharePoint has become a favorite in the corporate space. However, some companies are still stuck on the good old file servers. Is it about time you migrate your Fileshare to SharePoint? What makes SharePoint a better alternative? 

While a small company – with a few hundred documents to store – might be happy with their file server’s capabilities, someone in a large enterprise might end up tearing some of their hair out in the search for one document in a repository of a million. 

However, SharePoint makes usability much easier, offering a ton of helpful features. Read on to understand why you need to make the transition from Fileshare to SharePoint today. 

Why Should You Move to SharePoint?

Conventionally, organizations used on-premises file services to organize and store data. Accessing this information was possible through all computers in the workplace. 

In its infancy, this system was praised widely since it eliminated the need for employees to look for their desired data in their colleague’s hard drives or email inboxes. 

Instead, they could simply upload the data to a shared drive, making it accessible to everyone. 

However, this system had many flaws. For one, there was always a risk of duplication, with multiple people uploading the same file. Second, old versions remained in the drive, never deleted even after updated versions of the same file were uploaded. 

Third, looking for information was still a tedious task since so many documents were uploaded to the drive on a daily basis. Fortunately, SharePoint came along and solved many of these problems. 

SharePoint is like your organization’s own little vault where you store and organize all the information that’s relevant to the workplace. Here are some reasons to migrate your Fileshare to SharePoint for document management. 

1. Total Access, Whenever, Wherever 

With traditional file servers, employees had to be in the workplace to access information. However, SharePoint eliminates this limitation, making the data accessible no matter where you are. 

Whether you’re in the workplace or working remotely, the data is just a single search away. 

2. Search Functionality

A McKinsey report found employees to be spending 1.8 hours daily just looking for information. That comes up to over nine hours every week – nine hours of wasted time. 

However, SharePoint ensures your employees are not wasting their time or harming their productivity by spending a part of their day locating the correct information. 

With its practical search functionality, SharePoint lets people search for files in nanoseconds. 

All you have to do is type in a keyword or a specific name, and SharePoint will present that document for you. It’s perfect for large organizations where hundreds of documents are created and stored every day. 

3. Collaborate Easily 

When working on a project, you might be editing or going through a document with one or more of your colleagues. With multiple projects going on side by side, this can become quite a hassle.

Luckily, SharePoint lets you collaborate easily on documents, allowing all parties to give their input and make changes. 

It helps prevent duplication and ensures that the latest versions are always available. 

4. Backups 

One of the biggest issues plaguing Fileshare servers is the creation of multiple versions of one document. Since every version is renamed differently – often with slight variations – it can be hard to find the correct version when you need it.

Plus, in this way, a single document ends up taking more space than it should have. On the other hand, SharePoint offers you the benefit of ‘version history’. Therefore, you only have to work on one document. 

If you make any changes to it, its older version is still saved in SharePoint. So, if you ever need to go back to an older version, you can do it with a single click. 

5. One Document, One Copy 

In traditional Fileshare servers, you have to send a copy of a document to your colleague if you want to collaborate. Thus, there are multiple copies of the same document in different people’s email inboxes and hard drives. 

On the contrary, with SharePoint you only require one copy of a document, even when collaborating. You don’t have to email and send that document as an attachment to your colleague in any way.

Rather, the person you need to collaborate with comes to the relevant document to work with you. That’s right, everyone collaborates in SharePoint. If you need to send an email, simply add a link in the email to the document.

6. Moderate Everything 

When everyone has permission to edit, delete, or add information, chaos follows. However, if you only limit this access to some people – such as team owners or managers – in the company, there’s more uniformity and organization. 

7. Set Up Workflows 

While traditional Fileshare servers are helpful in terms of document storage, they don’t do much for collaboration. On the other hand, SharePoint has a Document Library in which you can create workflows. 

For instance, if a certain document needs to be reviewed, approved, or signed, SharePoint lets you set up this workflow as per your needs. In this way, you can assure quality control while automating every process. 

8. Create Document Sets 

If you have the same folder for storing all information about a project, you’re bound to have a hard time finding a particular document. 

However, SharePoint has Document Sets that lets you group different files into a unified ‘set.’ 

Basically, you can curate the expense report, quotes, proposal, video files, audios, written files, and photos for any project pipeline in a set that can be integrated into an existing or new workflow. 

Conclusion

Since SharePoint is more robust, has better search functionality, and offers workflow automation features, you should migrate from your Fileshare to SharePoint for better collaboration and document management in the workplace.